How much RAM do you need, should you upgrade it, and will it speed up your PC?

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Welcome to ExtremeTech’s comprehensive RAM guide, in which we’ll answer a broad range of questions related to how much system RAM you need these days, whether or not it’s worth it to upgrade older systems, and whether DDR3 or DDR4 (the new main types of system RAM) is a better investment option.

It’s interesting to look back and see how much things have changed over the past twenty years. People have been writing RAM guides for decades, but back when I was learning about computing, much more emphasis was paid to the specific technical implementation of any given RAM standard. Fast Page Mode RAM, EDO RAM, SDRAM, DDR, and RDRAM are just a few of the standards that existed elbow-to-elbow, and which type of memory your system used often determined if it was worth upgrading.

Nowadays, things are simpler. While a few of you may still have DDR2-based equipment from 2005 to 2009, the majority of systems today are likely using DDR3. That’s the memory standard we’ll focus on; if you have DDR2-related questions you’re welcome to drop them in the comments.

How much RAM do you need?

How much RAM you need in a system depends on what you intend to do with it, how long you intend to keep it, and whether or not you can upgrade your memory post-purchase. This last point is important, as many high-end laptops have eliminated user-upgradeable RAM in order to reduce system thickness by roughly six nanometers.

Adding additional RAM to any laptop generally increases power consumption by a measurable (if small) amount, but this shouldn’t be an issue for most users. It’s also better to have a bit too much RAM than too little, as whatever you gain in power savings you’ll promptly lose to increased disk paging.

Apple’s MacBook Air offers 4GB of RAM, but most of the systems from Dell, HP, and other OEMs start at 8GB, and I think that’s the better sweet spot. That’s not to say you can’t get by on 4GB — you absolutely can — but 8GB gives you a bit more breathing room.

The MacBook Air ushered in the era of soldered DRAM. Everyone followed.

There’s at least some evidence that modern desktop applications have slowed the rate at which they demand more RAM. From 1990 to 2000, Photoshop’s minimum RAM requirement rose from 2MB to 64MB, a 32x increase in 10 years. It took another 16 years to match this early rate (from 64MB in 2000 to 2GB in 2016).

A lightweight system today can get by with 4GB of RAM. 8GB should be plenty for current and near-term future applications, 16GB gives you comfortable space for the future, and anything over 16GB is likely overkill unless you specifically know you need it (such as for video editing or audio post-production). This holds true for desktops as well as laptops.

DDR3 or DDR4?

Right now there’s plenty of DDR3 systems still being sold, but DDR4 has already begun to replace it on the mass market. If you’re building a new system and don’t have a specific reason to use DDR3, we’d recommend buying hardware that’s compatible with DDR4.

With that said, if your system does use DDR3, that’s not the problem that it used to be. In the old days, a computer stuck on, say, PC133 SDRAM was at an intrinsic performance disadvantage compared with systems that used DDR, particularly at higher clock speeds. That’s less true than it used to be, and it may make sense to upgrade a DDR3 system depending on what you have and when you bought it. The reason to use DDR4 at this point has more to do with long-term memory pricing trends and future compatibility than fundamental performance. We’ll explore current price and the performance question later in this guide.

Does faster RAM boost system performance?

Short answer: Sometimes, but not by much.Medium answer: It depends on other system components, workload, and whether or not you’re using integrated graphics.

Longer answer: See below.

RAM performance is controlled by two metrics: Clock speed and access latency. Access latencies tend to fall much more slowly than clock rates — as this diagram shows, the memory cell cycle time of PC100 is roughly equivalent to DDR4-2133. DDR4 doesn’t match DDR3-2133 cycle times until you hit DDR4-4266.

RAM cycle times at various clock speeds

Conventional wisdom is that RAM latency has become relatively less important in recent years, thanks to a combination of factors. Back when L2 caches were small, memory controllers were off-die (and clocked at a fraction of CPU speed), and there were no L3 caches, memory latency had a larger impact on overall system performance. Modern CPUs are typically backed by 512 to 1MB of L2 (per core), and 1.5MB to 2MB of L3 cache (per core). Memory controllers are now integrated on-die and run at full processor speed. As a result, RAM latency simply doesn’t play as large a part as it once did in determining performance.

As for raw memory bandwidth, the same large caches that minimize the impact of RAM latency in most applications also limit the impact of memory bandwidth. Desktop applications are, for the most part, latency-sensitive, not bandwidth-sensitive.

These performance results are from Corsair, but they match extensive testing on the topic. AMD APUs love fast DRAM.

There’s one major exception to this rule: Integrated graphics performance. Both Intel and AMD integrated graphics see some benefit from higher-speed memory, but the gains are particularly large on the AMD side. This has proven true for every APU since at least Trinity, and will likely continue to be accurate for DDR4-based hardware. The advent of HBM2 in APUs will finally throw open the bandwidth floodgates — until then, integrated graphics will always be somewhat bandwidth-limited.

What about high-end gaming performance?

Until recently, I would’ve told you that high-speed RAM had very little impact on high-end gaming. A recent report from Digital Foundry, however, appeared to show otherwise.

Digital Foundry’s full review is worth a read — they tested a Core i5-6500K with a GTX Titan X at 1080p in a variety of titles to measure both the impact of overclocking DDR4 and of higher clock speeds. What we’ve done below is map the gains they saw from overclocking DDR4 from 2133MHz to either 3066MHz or 3200MHz. These two clock speeds always delivered the best performance, but some titles showed the greatest gains at 3066MHz and regressed at 3.2GHz, while others showed continual improvement.

This dataset is limited, but it does point to some general trends. First, minimum frame rates tend to increase more than average frame rate. Second, the gains are title-specific: Battlefield 4, Crysis 3, and COD Advanced Warfare all see gains under 10%, while GTA V, Far Cry 4, and The Witcher 3 are all at or above the 15% mark. Assassin’s Creed Unity splits the difference, with a 15% jump in minimum frame rates and a 6% rise in average frame rates.

The Digital Foundry team claims to see a similar set of results when using faster DDR3 in Fallout 4 and a GTX 970. As this screenshot shows, FO4’s minimum frame rate rises dramatically when paired with DDR3-2400 instead of DDR3-1600.

Image by Digital Foundry

Again, however, a caveat is in order. Gamebryo games have always tended to be very friendly to more memory bandwidth — much more so than you would otherwise expect. We’ve seen this in Skyrim, and we’re seeing it, apparently, in Fallout 4 as well. TechSpot has more on this, and their data shows that Intel chips gain more than AMD does from faster DDR3. This actually makes sense — the FX-8350’s L3 and integrated memory controller are clocked at 2.2GHz, and the FX-8350 has other latency issues that will blunt the impact of faster RAM.

The non-Fallout 4 gains aren’t huge, considering that we’re increasing RAM clock by 50%, but these results fly in the face of previous testing. For years, conventional wisdom has been that RAM clock speed is nearly irrelevant to game performance, provided that you’ve met the minimum threshold for a title.

It’s possible that we’re seeing the impact of new game engines or that the GTX Titan X that Digital Foundry used was powerful enough to show an impact, whereas previous video cards were not. The choice of resolution (1080p) and potentially even the use of FCAT over FRAPS could also have played a part.

One major point to be aware of if you intend to try and run extremely high memory clocks: If you’re buying a bunch of DDR3-1600 (or DDR4-2133) to stick in a box, you probably don’t need to worry about sticking to the “manufacturer recommended” section of your motherboard manual. If, on the other hand, you want to run maximum clock speeds, take the time to review precisely which RAM your motherboard vendor recommends you use. Keep in mind that running high RAM clocks is often at odds with running large amounts of memory. Single-sided DIMMs tend to tolerate high frequencies and low latencies better than double-sided memory, and you ideally don’t want to use more than one DIMM per channel unless your motherboard vendor specifically recommends differently.

Skip this step, and you may well end up with memory that can’t reach its full potential in your system.

Next, we’ll cover upgrading and cost. What clock speeds make sense, and which don’t?

Before we discuss the upgrade question, let’s have a look at what you can expect to pay for DDR3 and DDR4 today. We compared the price of 16GB of DDR3 and DDR4 memory throughout their respective clock frequencies, using Newegg.com as our source.

DDR3 scaling. Cost of 16GB

DDR3 prices are fairly stable until you reach DDR3-2666. DDR3-2400 may be worth the extra dollars, since you’re paying 18% more and receiving a 50% clock boost, but nothing above 2.4GHz is worth your cash.

The rapid price increases above 2.4GHz don’t just reflect enthusiast price gouging, but the difficulty of getting good yield on DDR3 memory at these frequencies. DDR3 wasn’t designed to scale to such high clock rates, and the 2666MHz price reflects that.

DDR4 shows a more leisurely curve. There’s no single inflection point at which cost skyrockets. $105 for 16GB of DDR4-3200 isn’t a bad deal if you can spare the cash — and if you can’t, 16GB of DDR4-2133 isn’t going to leave you gasping in the latest games.

Should you upgrade older systems?

Upgrades are another area that deserve consideration. There are plenty of first-generation Core i7 systems that likely opted for DDR3-1066. If you’ve got a Core i7 rig from this era with 4GB to 6GB of relatively low-speed DDR3, is it worth upgrading to high-speed RAM?

The answer here is probably, but I wouldn’t go overboard. 12GB of DDR3-1600, for example, is around $60 at Newegg. Higher frequency kits aren’t always offered in the multiples of 3 that the old X58 motherboards liked best, but if you can find a DDR3-1866 kit that matches your board and doesn’t cost much more, I’d say go for it.

There are, however, some caveats to this position. AMD’s Phenom II and first-generation Intel Core i7 products (Nehalem microarchitecture, codenamed Bloomfield or Lynnfield) all used “uncore” clock speeds well below the CPU clock. The Phenom II’s L3 cache and integrated memory controller were clocked at 2GHz, while the Core i7 920 and 940 were clocked at 2.13GHz. This will limit the benefit you see from faster DDR3 unless you also overclock the uncore; clocking memory faster than the memory controller rarely results in improved performance.

AMD Bulldozer and Piledriver CPUs both use uncore clocks around 2.2GHz, as do the company’s APUs. Intel switched to an uncore clocked at base CPU frequency with Sandy Bridge, which typically means 3GHz or more.

DDR3-2133 should be considered the highest-end “practical” upgrade clock for older hardware. If you’ve already got 8-16GB of DDR3-1600 I wouldn’t bother, but if you opted for DDR3-800 to DDR3-1066 when you built your system and have just 4-6GB of memory in it, you may see some modest improvements for relatively little cost. Be advised, however, that a faster GPU will usually be the better system upgrade if you have to pick between RAM and graphics, and can’t afford to do both.

Putting it all together

We’ve touched on a great many topics in this story, so I’ll summarize the findings here. If you’re planning to buy a new laptop, check to see if it allows for RAM upgrades or not. This isn’t a given anymore. Mobile users with light use cases can get by on 4GB of RAM; 8GB is a good target for the majority of people. If you’re a gamer, photo/video editor, or planning to do CAD/CAM work, we recommend at least 16GB of memory. Chances are if you need more than that, you already know it.

If you’re a desktop user with an older system, especially an older enthusiast rig, adding faster RAM may help you eke a few more years out of your hardware, especially if you only have 6GB of RAM today.

Gamers looking to build new desktops should target DDR4 and a 16GB sweet spot. Higher frequency DDR4 is better than lower, all else being equal, but don’t worry about your rig being crippled if you need to shave a few dollars off the cost. DDR4 will be on the market for years to come and the prices will inevitably come down further. This is particularly true if you’re going to build with a midrange GPU; a GPU-limited game won’t see a huge performance shift from using faster DDR4.

If you want to install massive amounts of memory now, there’s nothing wrong with jumping for 32GB of DDR4, but I don’t expect it to be of much practical benefit for the overwhelming majority of people. Most applications take their memory consumption cues from Microsoft, and Microsoft has held the bar steady on Windows for a very long time. If you’re planning to edit 5K videos or RAW 4K camera footage this obviously doesn’t apply to you — stuff as much RAM in your chassis as you like in that case.

Hopefully this helps clear up questions, but if you’ve got an issue I haven’t touched on, sound off in the comments below.

Check out our ExtremeTech Explains series for more in-depth coverage of today’s hottest tech topics.

Tagged In

Not a gamer…I base my PC specs on what will run photoshop smoothly. 12gb on my present PC, i5 chip

close

I always considered that the only time when RAM really has an impact on the system is when there’s too little of it. Once you go above the critical limit (which could be anything depending on your the user’s needs) any additional RAM is just “nice to have”.

I have 16GB in my gaming machine but never went above 10GB total usage while gaming. And that was mostly useless background tasks. I chose 16GB for future proofing (and because I got a great deal). When it comes to VMs though I have 2 32GB machines and I’d still like more.

fairportfan

Editing 24 mrgapixel photos on a machine with 8 gig RAM, i not-infrequently get “Insufficient memory” errors if i get to ambitious. I really need another eight.

close

Most likely but once you add enough RAM to run your workload anything extra brings no benefit. There’s a persistent myth that putting in huge amounts of RAM will make the computer run faster so I saw plenty of PCs with 32GB of RAM when 8GB would have been enough because the owner thought that the more RAM the faster the computer.

Skip

Although you are correct, it can be fun to have extra RAM. RAM disks are a lot of fun. If you have ever installed a game on a RAM disk it is a wonderful experience (do make sure to install off an SSD, or installation will take too long).

Also, anyone messing with huge files (like 24 megapixel photos, or video) will find both a lot of RAM as well as a RAM disk cache or scratch disk quite nice.

I think the biggest place where tons of RAM matters is with VMs. I do not care what some IT consultant says, 2 gb of RAM per VM is not enough for anyone, save perhaps a low-resolution linux render farm. There is a WORLD of a difference between 2gb of RAM and 4 gb of RAM for those actually using those instances. Your workforce will be more productive, but more importantly, they will not be bitter and angry, looking to kill IT staff.

close

This is a much bigger discussion. As I said, having a lot of RAM is “nice to have”. But I see nothing wrong with a 2GB machine. Ideally you would use exactly what you need, not more, not less.

Cestarian

PS can easily burn through 24GB of RAM (if you work at high enough resolutions, use plenty of layers and may work on more than one image, etc). 32 is a bit of a stretch though.

But if you don’t mind things running a little slow, a pagefile can substitute for memory to allow you to run photoshop or other programs like it despite being low on RAM; you need to manually define the size though.

Harm ten Napel

If you like experimenting with virtual machines you likely want all the RAM your BIOS can support, an interesting case is DELL with their XPS line, they offer it with 24GB DDR4 (2x4GB+2x8GB) which fills all your slots, I hate them for it since the BIOS supports 32GB but then you need to pull the 2x4GB DIMMS.

Skip

Virtual machines on a laptop??? You know that makes no sense, right?

You are far better off getting a cheap old multi-core Xeon or the original i7. The Xeons can often be found cheap, an they tend to have quite wonderful motherboards with lots of expansion opportunities. I got an old 6-core Xeon that can take a ton of RAM (I have 64 gb) and it has lots of PCIe connectivity as well as a few PCI slots.That is a great machine to mess around with.

You are far better off getting a less expensive laptop with just enough RAM, then spending your savings on a proper desktop machine. Talk to office janitors. They will often call you with good stuff getting thrown away in exchange for a coffee or taco. I have re-sold more than a few SAS hard drives from such exchanges. I saw a youtube video where a guy got a whole fiberchannel SAN this way.

Harm ten Napel

VM’s on a laptop makes perfect sense, it’s just a PC in a different form factor, if it has sufficient amount of RAM it’s no problem, I actually depend on it to test out software for my employer professionally.

I never seem to use over 4.5GB, my next system will probably have 8GB DDR4 if I go iGPU(5×5), or 16GB DDR4 if I get a dedicated GPU in a laptop. Must match muscle.

Skip

I never understood the whole GPU in a laptop thing.

Riely Rumfort

I hook it all to peripherals. A keyboard, mouse, screen, audio amp. It’s a lower power desktop with a portable screen, easy to carry around to hook up to whatever, easy to take places.
Desktops use an excessive amount of power, I won’t own one again.
My laptop uses 9-85watts, my desktop before it used 5 times that. Understand?

Elon Natan

I think 8-16gb is ok for non gamers, but I will recommend to a gamer to buy at least 2x8gb and not 4×4 so you could add 2 more sticks of 8gb later on.
A couple of games already recommend 16gb ram, So for future proofing 32gb will be what I buy for my next system.

Joel Hruska

Depends on if you want high clocks or not. 32GB kits are going to be intrinsically more limited in that regard, due to memory channel loading from either 8x4GB or the high number of traces on a 4x8GB configuration.

There’s nothing wrong with going with more RAM if it suits your use case or personal preference, of course.

Elon Natan

Sure it will be more expensive and limited in clock speeds, but realistically If you buy 4x4GB the next time you will want to upgrade you will need the change all the sticks and buy a new set. So my thinking is to buy a system with a Pascal/Polaris gpu and 32GB for future proofing.

Crunchy005

16GB is plenty right now. I did put only 2 x 8GB in my computer though so I can upgrade in the future if I need to…Although i’m on DDR3 so IDK how long I will be able to find RAM. I will probably opt for 2 more 8GB sticks when DDR3 gets really cheap, and before it’s rare and prices shoot up…

Joel Hruska

I chose to price 4x4GB as a decent midpoint on the market.

It’s difficult to pick one RAM size and module density that applies to *everyone.* A quad-channel user might want 4x4GB over 2x 8GB. An old X58 owner prefers sets of 3. And since DDR4 densities tend to be higher than DDR3, I wanted to pick a RAM amount that wouldn’t put a premium on one memory type versus the other.

Also, the costs for higher density memory tend to increase faster at top frequencies, so you can end up with some different cost curves as a result. As with most estimates, there’s going to be slippage.

Skip

What game actually needs 16gb of RAM? Usually console ports use the most RAM, but the consoles only have 8gb for both CPU and GPU. I find it difficult to believe (unless it is some Assassins Creed nonsense).

Most gamers should be fine with two stick (8gb or 16gb total). Four sticks are troublesome to overclock. It is too much fun to not overclock.

AS118

I have 16gb just because I wanted to fill all the slots I had on my mobo for OCD reasons, and honestly, I haven’t run across a game that needs more than 8gb, and that’s with me multitasking with stuff like Chrome in the background.

I had 8gb before 16gb and I don’t really notice a difference unless I have like a ton of tabs open or something, and even then, I could just close most of those tabs.

Kyle

I’ve had newer games chew through 10GB of RAM on their own, so I would lean towards getting a minimum of 16GB as a gamer, with 32GB being a comfortable future-proof.

Joel Hruska

Which games?

I’ve yet to see a game that attempted more than about 4.5GB of system RAM. VRAM, yes (though that’s inaccurate due to reporting deficiencies) but not system RAM.

Kyle

Most recently Ark earlier in it’s development. It wasn’t well optimized. It could be played well enough, but if you were one of the people with 8GB system RAM, you were hosed.

I believe I’ve also had Space Engineers cross the 10GB threshold in certain situations.

Joel Hruska

Interesting. You’ve piqued my curiosity.

Severnia

i can second this on space engineers, my friend is building a 1:1 scale star wars destroyer on that game and is using around 60GB of ram for the game alone currently while working on it. hes on a dual xeon workstation with 128GB ecc ram but most cant even load his server.

For me, Just Cause 3 make me go from 8GB to 16GB installed to stop the horrendous stuttering.
Basically, bad optimisation on the PC port.

Mr_Blastman

Elite Dangerous Horizons will eat up 8 gigs system ram and another 4 of vram easy.

Joel Hruska

Interesting. I have not played Elite.

Mr_Blastman

It’s pretty cool if you’re into space with a broad imagination. It expects the player to figure out what they want to do, themselves.

Sebastian Mai

star citizen also eats a large sum of ram, even in its current state. also it was said that it will make use of all disposable system memory because of the whole no loading screen thing :)

Raymond Chuang

For the majority of users, 8 GB of RAM is more than enough. It’s only much more specialized applications that demand up to 16 GB of RAM–especially illustration, image-processing and media-processing programs.

Kyle

For the majority of users, yes. 8GB is that magical sweet spot for RAM. Although gamers may require more than that in some situations.

Crunchy005

Great article, wish I had read “take the time to review precisely which RAM your motherboard vendor recommends you use” part before we completed my friends build. He got DDR4-3200 for his asus MOBO(RAM we have now found out is not listed as fully compatible). It’s G-Skill, I believe and he gets a surge protection error from the BIOS when he tries to boot with the XMP profile on. This has been somewhat fixed since then with a BIOS update but he says if the power supply is fully discharged and then he turns it on it will reset the BIOS and give this error. Clocking the RAM at 2800 seemed to keep it stable but maybe he could get away with the 3066 speeds, as you mentioned that might even be better than the 3200. Also maybe the power supply is a bit wonky or dirty power? I still wonder if a UPS might help with this a bit, not sure though. Anyway, good information here.

Joel Hruska

This is an odd one. The surge supressor error can be caused by a memory timing issue; I’d recommend keeping the system and voltages at levels that allow for a clean startup 100% of the time.

Crunchy005

Ya, I tell him to turn it back but he wants what he paid for…the 3200.

erendofe

resetting the BIOS from a total cold start shouldn’t be happening. I would recommend checking the battery on the mobo. IF it is any help, you may wish to cross-reference the voltage settings between the Gskill and “compatible” kits. you may find you may have to slightly under volt the ram if possible. the ram’s power draw is a function of its clock speed and voltage, hence if the ram allows a very slight volt drop and still works stable it might bring the power draw under the trip threshold. hope this helps

Crunchy005

Well the BIOS reset is triggered by the BIOS itself to protect itself when it detects the surge(caused by the RAM) but this only happens from a cold start. I think he needs to manually clock the RAM up and not use the XMP profile as that seems to be the issue. I think he could get the 3200 or close to 3200 with a small undervolt and avoid the issue. Unfortunately I had a very short time to work on it. The RAM was running at 2800 without the XMP profile and just a multiplier increase without any issues. After the BIOS update he reenabled the XMP profile and I haven’t seen it since. But ya an undervolt isn’t a bad idea.

Fast_Turtle

When it comes to system ram, the best thing to do is always check the QVL list (tested/certified) memory by the board maker. Solves lots of issues and speeds up the RMA process if there’s an actual problem.

booim

I’m a heavy multi-task user between Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign. I’ve been thinking of upgrading to 32gb (currently using 16gb) since I’ve been getting a lot of low memory warning when editing 4k photos, but couldn’t find the exact same brand locally. Would it be okay to mix with different brand either Corsair or Kingston, which are the most common brand available here (currently using Patriot DDR3 2133 CL11 series – based on CPU-Z, on Gigabyte Z87 UDH3H – F10b bios)? I don’t mind getting lower speed, but don’t want to sacrifice stability.

Joel Hruska

Most motherboards will tolerate multiple brands of memory, even multiple clock speeds. The board is typically pulled down to work at the speed of the slowest ICs. I would recommend trying to search Amazon o NewEgg for your exact brand of memory.

jimv1983

As long as you get the same type and speed of RAM then different brands shouldn’t be a big deal.

booim

That’s the thing that made me confuse. Some stores said it would work just fine and others said it won’t work, but all stores had something in common, there’s no return policy unless the item is doa.

Mr_Blastman

I use up 16 gigs of RAM every day.

Joel Hruska

Then you should buy more RAM next time you upgrade. :)

Mike kizaberg

i use up to 10 gigs of ram 24/7 and i have 12gb ram

Matheus Pfitscher

Can we have a section on memory channels for this guide? what is the importance of the number of channels today?

Joel Hruska

Ahah! I can definitely add that here.

Almost everyone is on dual-channels these days, and has been for a long time. You have some tri-channel people on the old X58 and some quad-channel high-end Intel owners, but for everyone else it’s a dual-channel game. Since both AMD and Intel have been using that approach for a decade, I didn’t explicitly break it out.

It’s important to follow your motherboard’s best practices recommendation to keep both channels populated correctly for optimum performance. Past that, you should be good to go. AMD and Intel are both set to keep dual-channel configurations as mainstream with DDR4, so the guidelines on them haven’t really changed since the old DDR days.

William Warren

I have 32 gigs in my current system. This system has a i-5 4690k with a crucial mx series 1TB. I also have a gtx 960 4 GB video card. I use this memory to run many programs all at once at startup so i do not have to wait for them to launch. I also have an ssd to make things move even faster. Right now I have 61 tabs open in chrome. I have 15 items running in my system tray to boot..:) right now i am using “only” 7 gigs of ram…:) Mondo ram doesn’t make my system go faster..but it does keep it from slowing down due to ram starvation..:)

Glenn H

This really isn’t on topic, but you guys are so knowledgeable – I figured I would try asking. I am in need of a new gaming laptop. I am starting to travel a lot more for work this year, so I wanted to purchase something to keep me entertained in my hotel at night.

I have been looking at the Sager NP8658-S (or the 17″ version NP8678-S), which are more on the budget side of things ~$1.75K for an i7 6700HQ and GTX 980M or the high end NP9870-S which packs full desktop i7 6700K and GTX 980 for about $2.7k.

What do people think about these options? Also more generally, has NVIDIA given any indications when their next generations of cards might come out? I am sort of expecting them to arrive this spring, so I am hesitant to buy a new laptop if it will just be outdated in a few months. Might it be better to hold off, or will the new generation of cards demand such a price premium that the cost/performance wouldn’t really warrant buying one immediately anyway?

Joel Hruska

Glenn,

I gave some of my own thoughts on throttling and clock speeds in this review — I recommend reading it, even if you decide to stick with the Sager:

TL,DR: I would recommend keeping your component choices somewhat restrained, even in a high-end chassis. Do not assume that *any* OEM has designed a high-end cooling system that can handle desktop component thermals and power consumption without seeing a great deal of specific data demonstrating that they have. It’s much cheaper to ship with high-end hardware that throttles than to actually vet the equipment and cooling solutions to prevent it.

I would recommend the 980M over the 980, for example.

Nvidia has not stated when their next-generation of cards will be available. I suspect these GPUs will offer substantial performance improvements over current cards, but I genuinely do not know when they’ll be in market. Typically desktop hardware comes first, followed by mobile, which implies AMD and NV might not ship new mobile SKUs until back-to-school or later.

If you can wait up to 9 months for a new system, it might be best to do so. On the other hand, the GTX 980M really is great silicon. You won’t be buying bad hardware if you buy now.

Glenn H

Thanks for the input Joel. I actually had read your review on that Asus when you posted it :) I was weighing that, but I think the extra ~$250 to get the current gen i7 is probably worth it to me – plus that allows going with DDR4 instead of DDR3. There is a ton of documented benchmarks on the laptopreview.net forum page for the Sager. No one has seen any signs of throttling on the 980M version, but I haven’t looked into the 980 reviews as it is a pretty new offering.

The other question I have been mulling is how these laptops would play with VR. I have an Oculus pre-ordered, and I always assumed I would just use it with my desktop. However, some of these laptops are looking like they might come *close* to being able to run it. I assume a next-gen laptop would handle it pretty easily, but current gen looks questionable. Any thoughts on that front? It certainly makes the decision of whether to wait or not that much more difficult.

Joel Hruska

*nods* I would definitely look for throttle information on the 980 (no M). That’s a very high powered card.

The GTX 980M should … roughly meet requirements. It’s not quite the match of the desktop GTX 970, but it’s close. The desktop GTX 980 would definitely meet requirements, but it could end up throttling.

Kyle

I’m not sure if this helps or not, but Clevo (Sager) has pretty decent cooling capabilities for a laptop. It can move a lot of air, and spits out heat like a dragon. However…

From my own experience: My Sager has a GTX 970m in it. The GPU itself runs very cool, but the CPU doesn’t fare as well. It’s running ~90-95C under maximum load with Prime95. For the particular model of processor, 100C is the top of it’s normal operating parameters. While it’s under that…it’s still a little unnerving, considering my old desktop i7 2600k would lock up at temperatures like that.

I also recommend not opting for the IC Diamond thermal paste at checkout. The stuff is annoying to replace, and they muck up the initial application a lot of the time because it’s thicker than normal thermal paste.

Glenn H

Well, I pulled the trigger last night. I actually ended up going for the “in between” option. Got the NP8678-S! I figured I would appreciate the extra screen real estate, and it only takes the weight from 5.5 lbs to 7 lbs. I can manage that I think.
In case you were wondering, upon deeper digging into the “desktop” 980 – it is actually more like a 990M. A lot of the enthusiasts think they should have badged it like that. It has similar performance to the 980, but is still customized for more of a laptop configuration with regards to power and cooling. Either way, I was having a tough time justifying an extra 50%-75% cost to get maybe 25%-30% better benchmarks.

XenoSilvano

More RAM will not speed your system up (unless it runs at a higher clock speed) as much as it will prevent your system from slowing down.

Rawr

8GB of ram minimum, 16GB of ram standard, 24+GB of ram for headroom/ramdrive/futureproof for gamers. My 2008 PC with 6GB of ram could barely pull things through and caused me numerous BSOD and low memory ram warnings until I upgraded to 24GB. Never had a BSOD since. Apparently I use at most 12GB of ram when running various things. Who would’ve thought my BSOD’s came most from ram issues (even when I had just enough).

jimv1983

It sounds to me like you had bad memory. You should never get a BSOD from simply being low on memory. It’s actually pretty hard to “run out” of memory on a PC. If you have more things open then the amount of RAM installed then some of the least used stuff gets swapped out to the hard drive to something called a “page file”. It does make it slower but it won’t actually stop things from working and certainly won’t cause a BSOD. Also, I think the OS will keep track of bad addresses and avoid using them which would decrease your usable RAM.

I think replacing your RAM with non-defective RAM probably did more to resolve your problems than increasing the amount of RAM did.

Joel Hruska

Jimmy,

I’ve BSODed a system before for this reason, but you have to work to make it happen. Specifically, I shrank the size of the local swap file to regain the space on a small SSD.

The system had 12GB of RAM at that point and would BSOD until I increased to 24GB of RAM. At that point, the BSOD stopped. But I’d manually altered swap file sizing, which you’re really not supposed to do.

Phobos

How much RAM do you need? doesn’t that depend on the type of CPU? OS and motherboard? Seems this article is leaving some critical information. Unless I’m missing something.

Aces-In The-Palm

Not really.
16GB is pretty much standard.
CPU will determine whether you need 2 or 4 sticks (I run x79 so have 4x4GB sticks) although you can run dual channel on a quad system, its a little crazy not to take advantage of what you got.

Joel Hruska

The degree to which your system can be upgraded can depend on some of those specs, of course, but not the question of how much RAM you need.

Also, Intel’s Core i7 family supported 24GB of RAM as far back as late 2008. AMD’s Phenom II was either 16GB or 32GB. You have to go back quite awhile to find a CPU that couldn’t handle 16GB of RAM.

There are probably some Core 2 / Phenom motherboards out there limited to 8GB, but if you’re using a nearly ten-year-old CPU and motherboard combination, RAM upgrades probably aren’t your highest priority.

jimv1983

I’ll be building a new machine in the next year or so. I’ll be playing some games. I’ll be getting 16GB.

Lorfa

I want to upgrade my ddr2 system, but ddr2 memory prices for some reason are high. You’d think they’d lower, supply and demand and all that :-/

Joel Hruska

Very little DDR2 is made these days. It’s not going to get cheaper.

Kyle

Mushkin sells cheap DDR2 RAM these days. I had to upgrade my work PC a year or so ago. 2 X 2GB for ~$40. They’re my go-to company when it comes to buying older RAM.

Casino Wilhelm

Most I’ve managed to use in one go is 52GB out of 64 for a 3ds max + corona architectural render at about 5000px. Kept crashing when I “only” had 32gb in there. My first computer (zx spectrum) had 16k. Madness.

Our 1st computer had 64k (TRS80) with a 15M external Disk Pack. Fun times. Next was a Tandy 1000 with 4M running WFW 3.11 or Tandy’s Deskmate. Now my Graphing Calc (Ti94a) has as much power as an Apple IIe (same processor and it runs on 4x Triple A batteries.

dumpsteramerican

i over clock my cyrix386 to 68 mhz . is that world over clock .

SilentGal

I am running 16gb of ram and depending on the software i sue it is not enough and runs out rather fast due to photoshop and Quixel suite or loading HUGE .txt files into the ram to read them it is enough currently. I have considered upgrading but at the current point i dont run out of ram very often.

Chris MacDonald

I have 32GB in my work pc, and 16GB at home. Ideally would like 64GB in both.

jburt56

10 to the power of 20 bits.

williamsommerwerck

Some months back I spent $120 on upgrading my desktop from 16GB to 32GB. I was hoping this would resolve browser problems. It didn’t.

It’s not just a question of whether apps need additional RAM, but whether they’ll use it if available. Often, they don’t.

Raymond Chuang

In the end, 8 GB of RAM remains the “sweet spot” for people running Windows or MacOS X–in fact, it appears both Microsoft and Apple designed it that way. Relatively few applications need more than that–and most of those are illustration, image-processing or media processing programs. I’ve seen Windows 7 to 10 run VERY well in 8 GB of RAM.

Bill

More RAM is always a good thing, and it – just like processor – is something you should spend the money on when you buy any computer. My new “toy” – a 2013 Mac Pro with 64GB of RAM, dual D500s, and an 8 core – will pretty much eat up everything thrown at it, from 4k video editing to Photoshop work to Windows virtualization and still have room to breathe.

benmyers

Here’s the easy and simple summary.

If you are running a 64-bit operating system, 8GB is the minimum for one to be productive. If you use AutoCAD, use Adobe Creative Suite, or do software development, consider more memory, up to the limits of what your computer supports.

If you are running a 32-bit operating system, 4GB is the max, and some of that goes unused due to limits in the x86 hardware addressing scheme.

I do not deal much with gaming software, only more business-oriented clients. Gamers, you are on your own.

I sell a lot of 8GB-and-more systems, and my clients have few complaints about system performance.

While we are at it, consider replacing a traditional spinning hard drive with a more expensive SSD for much faster performance, generally better reliability, and, you laptop users out there, immunity to high G-force.

I completely agree with the whole SSD bit. Having an SSD in my laptop has not only saved it from many falls, but sandy environments too. We had a dust storm blow through awhile ago and I know of three dudes who’s laptops went down immediately after; all with spinning HDDs.

Joel Hruska

I absolutely agree with having an SSD in a system, but there are plenty of 4GB 64-bit laptops out there. I wouldn’t recommend someone running Adobe or other Content Creation software go with 4GB (8GB would be my limit), but if you aren’t going to do much with a system, 4GB is fine.

I don’t know about installing as much RAM as your system can handle, either. The Core i7-6700K can address 64GB of DDR4 RAM, but I’ve met very few people who need that much main memory. I run 24GB myself in a 2011 SNB-E system and have seen no need to bump up to 32GB, much less 64GB.

benmyers

To be sure, for most people, 64GB of memory would give much diminished returns for the money spent, compared to 24GB or 32GB. But, then, a 64GB-capable system with a Core i7-6700K is very much at the high end, isn’t it?

When I said to max out system memory, I was thinking more about the 8GB- and 16GB-capable systems I see most often.

There are plenty of 4GB laptops out there, and the most popular upgrade I sell is to take them up to 8GB. The owners are generally happy afterwards, and so is the hard drive, which suffers less wear and tear from activity on the paging file.

All you need is someone who opens up several applications at once, does not close them down and then opens up a lot of browser windows, and bingo! It’s time for delays while the 4GB system pounds away at the paging file.

Joel Hruska

I agree with you that 4GB is really a target for very light users. Anyone doing anything significant should be at the 8GB level. 16GB is, I think, a sweet spot — meaning it runs everything fine today, it’s not that expensive, and you won’t be scurrying out to buy more RAM in 8 months — but if you want to go for 32GB or even 64GB, I’m not opposed to it. One good aspect of the slow-down in CPU scaling is that we use systems for longer these days, meaning you aren’t just loading a rig with RAM you’ll never have the CPU performance to use.

benmyers

To underscore your point about using systems longer these days, I have some killer LGA1366 Xeon and i7 refurb workstations that can be loaded up with 96GB of memory, enough for even the most demanding video editor or Adobe CS artiste. Only problems are size of chassis and TDP of the entire system. They are better than the earlier LGA771 workstations which could heat a building on a cool fall day. And yes, memory is an inexpensive upgrade. I sell and install a lot of it.

Reginald Peebottom

I feel “system old” – most of my PCs are DDR2 equipped, except the Air and the boy’s game box. My game box is a 1090T with 8gigs of ddr2 – runs well enough with a decent video card. I know this is extreme tech not ancient tech, but I’d have been curious to see how ddr2 systems scale.

I used to update regularly ever since I got heavily into the PCs back first in the early 90s. But since about 2010, I’ve found that general Purpose and even for decent gaming purposes my rigs run things just fine with gpu upgrades alone (just once in that 5 year or so span).

Does the version of Windows matter? I got the impression that windows 10 ran better on meagre memory – I see a lot of Windows 10 tablets with just 2 or 4gigs.

Joel Hruska

I think you’d notice a speed increase today in gaming if you upgraded, but since you haven’t, there’s nothing wrong with waiting for 14nm GPUs before making the jump. The 1090T you have would probably be holding you back.

Raylan Givens

Still never needed more than 8GB. Also, I’m pretty sure if I get DDR4 at 2133 or 2400 won’t see any difference. I got DDR3 at 1600. Since I only use Samsung 850 SSDs, my next upgrade will be an nvidia with HBM2 memory. Currently I’ve 960gtx and along with gtx950 are the only cards that natively support HEVC hardware acceleration ( video engine ) on Windows 10.

Whoever has older PC, now is good time to upgrade. New Intel CPUs ( 14nm ) and DDR4. My 4690 can easily keep on. Only reason to wait is the GPU section. Full DX12 ( & HMB2 ) support you gonna get on next gen.

I’ve always like that word. It sounds like a new installment of some video game.

Fast_Turtle

Just upgraded system memory to max the board supports (32GB) and no, I’m not bragging. I have a Ram Disk app (www.softperfect.com) with a standard 8GB ram disk (Temp Files/Browser Cache and such). Also use Virtual PC 2007-64 and that can push demand quite heavily. Finaly not a major Gamer but do play Guildwars 2 regularly with all Graphics at max settings. Last but certainly not least, Have a USB based Turn Table that I’m using to digitize our LP collection with Audacity. Lots of temp space needed for that and the extra ram is already paying off due to high audio processing loads.

Billy Bob

RAM usage is mostly defined by what programs you need to run. I use 3D cad packages and PCB design tools. 16GB is the minimum for these tasks and 32GB is needed depending on what size projects you are working on. Gamers are NOT the only group that can use require large amounts of RAM.

Bob

‘ If you’re a gamer, photo/video editor, or planning to do CAD/CAM work, we recommend at least 16GB of memory. Chances are if you need more than that, you already know it.’

Keep your panties on

dc

All I play these days is WoT… which I assume is all anybody plays who is a real man… Well I guess some might play World of Warships…
Either way though, 8GB is plenty.

VM ware users need more than 8gb for sure, at least I know when using VM ware with 8gb or less, then it crawls, also if you have an SSD then less memory won’t feel so bad as loading and unloading from memory can be sped up considerably.

Mike Lukic

How about few words about relationship of Installed RAM – Free (usable) RAM – PF in Windows ?

Kwuarter

I’ve always said that having ram with higher frequencies RATHER then to have more ram would do a computer more justice.

Naeem Ullah

i have 2gb RAM installed at my laptop. i want to increase it. is it helpful in speeding up the laptop. http://www.itechmash.com

Edward Boyhan

My sense of MS new W10 browser, Edge, is that each tab runs in a separate process. If you keep a lot of browser tabs open (I often have more than 30), memory thrashing can become a problem, and Edge behavior becomes quite choppy (on my 8GB systems). So if you like to keep lots of tabs open, 16GB (or even 32 GB) may help (maybe on other browsers as well?).

jerrytsao

I say 8GB at minimum, 16GB for heavy gaming, 32GB are more than enough for those maniacs to work at multiple applications while leaving hundreds of chrome tabs open.

Roger

In my opinion, for the average user who does not use thier PC for gaming or other memory intensive tasks, 4GB of RAM will be more than enough. On the laptop I use daily, which I use mostly for web browsing, I’m running Windows 10, have 6GB of RAM, and it is very rare for RAM usage to reach 74%. I always have 20 to 30 tabs open in Chrome, more than 30 3rd party services running (due to having over 500 programs installed), and 15+ programs running in the system tray. Despite all of this, RAM usage is usually around 50% or less. If I open a few more programs, RAM usage is still usually under 60%. I may upgraded to 8GB for the rare occasion RAM usage rised to 74% of above, consdering RAM is cheap.

If I ddn’t always have so many Chrome tabs open, 4GB of RAM would be enough. So while I can understand that in certain circumstances, you will need a lot of RAM, I stand by my claim that the average user will only need 4GB.

My laptop only supports a maximum of 8GB of RAM, and I may upgrade to 8GB for the rare times that RAM usage exceed 74%. Maybe in a few years time, I’ll need more RAM than that and will have to upgrade to a better specced laptop, but I don’t believe that will be any time soon.

Arq.Javier Cancino

I got an i7 5930k with 64gb ddr4 of ram, why? I got a good deal, I do 3d modeling and rendering with 3d Studio Max-Vray,. so far,. have reached 25% of ram usage, like 10% due to Google Chrome, lol. I’ll guess I will sell 32gb, and keep the other 32, more than enough.

Cestarian

TL;DR:
RAM Quantity in gigabytes = Run more and/or heavier programs
RAM Frequency/Speed/Quality = Run many things slightly (but usually not noticably) faster.

Sweet spot for casuals (People who do not play heavy triple A games, and do not run heavy programs like photoshop or blender): 8GB RAM (4GB is a minimum)
Sweet spot for Gamers: 16GB RAM (8GB is a minimum)
Sweet spot for 2D Artists: 32GB RAM (16GB is a minimum)
Sweet spot for (heavier/3D) CAD work: 64GB RAM (Minimum 16GB)
Sweet spot for home servers and people who use virtual machines: 128GB RAM (32GB minimum)

There.

Footnote: DDR4 is reaching mass adoption and DDR3 motherboards are no longer being manufactured which means that if your computer is from early 2015 or older, your motherboard is most likely only compatible with DDR3 memory which is going to be selling out and rising in price over the next couple of years as the DDR4 memory lowers in price; until the DDR3 memory will no longer be sold. So if you are on a DDR3 based computer and want to upgrade your memory, upgrade it sooner rather than later.

evie carter

im no good with all the specs but am looking at buying a macbook pro 2.9ghz, i7, 750g storage, 8gb 1600Mhz DDR3.
i make music and will be using ableton frequently as well as using it for a large music and probably photo library – will this be adequate? Also, what is the spec that makes the whole laptop run faster? – i am clueless you see!

janus999

I’ve been waiting for DDR2 prices to come down – still using an old system, but it’s working just fine. I cannot believe that DDR2 just stays high – even though it is “old tech”!

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